


a few things worth saying

by katplanet



Series: sleep to the freezing [8]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Discussion of Past Addiction, Discussion of dysphoria, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Ghost Sex, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Offscreen Bentacle Horror, One (1) Art History Joke, Possession Negotiation, Relationship Negotiation, That’s a tag now, Trans Ben Hargreeves, as little incest discussion as humanly possible given the subject material, gender euphoria, trans author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27783094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katplanet/pseuds/katplanet
Summary: Klaus puts his dumb bony hands on Ben's cheeks and holds his head still. "You can borrow my dick.""You're so weird. That's the weirdest thing you've ever said to me.""You can," Klaus says, like a bloodhound on the trail of Ben's murdered dignity. "I'm being absolutely serious. I would never joke about this.""You joke about your dick all the time. Dick jokes are like eighty percent of your material.""I'm not talking about my dick. I'm talking aboutyourdick."
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Series: sleep to the freezing [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327031
Comments: 19
Kudos: 55





	a few things worth saying

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer that while i'm drawing on my own life as a transmasc person for inspiration, transmasculinity is by no means a universal experience! some people are fine with what they're born with, other people pursue affirming surgery, and then there's everything in between and outside of that spectrum - and that's not even getting into how they are or aren't comfortable using what they have. no two trans people exist in their bodies exactly the same way and quite frankly i love that for us.
> 
> anyway this is dedicated to all my fellow genderhavers for whom all the potentials of the ben possession subplot kinda hit different

"What," Klaus says, very slowly, standing amongst the pieces of a broken mug, coffee all over his feet, "the fuck."

"Uh," Ben says.

Klaus looks at Ben, who looks back at Klaus. Every hair that Ben doesn't technically have is standing on end.

"Did you," Klaus says. "Were you just."

"I think so."

Dave looks over at them from the couch in the living room, where he's been terraforming what is, in name only, Klaus's Animal Crossing island. It's the first time he's looked up in about three hours. "You okay?"

"I felt the air," Ben says.

"What does the air even feel like?" Klaus asks him, eyes wide.

"I dunno. It feels like air?"

"How do you know you felt the air if you don't know what air feels like?"

"I know what air doesn't feel like. I felt … not that."

Dave puts the Switch down and gets up off the couch in one of the most herculean displays of selflessness Ben has ever witnessed. "What are you talking about?"

Ben is on the floor. It feels different than it did before - colder, smoother, less like the tile in their childhood bathrooms and more like the unique, specific kitchen flooring in their apartment. He looks at Klaus's feet. Klaus is barefoot, standing on the tile next to him.

"Careful," Ben says. "Don't step on the mug pieces."

"Ben possessed me," Klaus says, looking at Dave.

"Wait, what? He can do that?"

"I, um," Ben says, still staring at Klaus's feet. "I just sort of - he was being a dick, so I was gonna walk through him, but then I was, like, inside him?"

"Holy shit, are you guys okay?"

"My coffee spilled," Klaus says, looking down at the floor. "Uh, ouch."

Dave grabs the paper towels off the counter. "Hold still."

He dabs the coffee up from around Klaus's feet, and Ben reaches out, picks up the bits of ceramic he can get to from where he's sitting. He piles them very carefully on the floor, away from Klaus. Dave gets the rest of them, swipes his hands around to make sure the area around Klaus is clear, and then he scoops Klaus up in his arms anyway, carries him off into the living room and deposits him on the couch.

Then he comes back for Ben, which is a good thing, because standing up and walking around is sort of a big ask, at the moment. He'd tried a few times, while Dave was carting Klaus away. No dice.

Dave puts Ben on the couch next to Klaus, and sits down on the ottoman across from them. Klaus had made fun of Ben and Dave for wanting an ottoman, but he ended up stashing all his blankets in it so that he could always get to them without extracting himself from whatever tangle of limbs he'd arranged himself in with the rest of them. He's so annoying.

"I wore you like a morphsuit," Ben says.

"You make it sound like you touched the inside of my skin."

"Ugh, no, you came up with that all by yourself."

“You have to touch the inside of a morphsuit to wear it. I followed you to the logical conclusion.”

“Guys,” Dave says. “Possession?”

“Yeah,” Klaus says. “Huh. I didn’t know we could do that.”

Ben looks down at his feet. His own feet, which are currently just as bare as Klaus's, because one day he got tired of wearing boots and two hoodies indoors in his own apartment, and then he was in soft flannel pants and a t-shirt and his feet were bare. He could wiggle his toes into the carpet, just like that.

There is so much about his own existence that he doesn't understand.

"I know what our kitchen floor feels like, now," Ben says. "What it feels like to you, at least. To the bottom of your feet."

"Shit, um," Klaus says, "you good, Benny?"

"It's cold," Ben says. "You should buy slippers."

"I have slippers."

"What? No, you don't."

"I absolutely do."

"Where?"

Klaus shrugs. "Closet, probably."

"You should wear them, then."

"Why," Dave asks, his voice gentle, "are we talking about slippers?"

"Slippers are actionable," Ben says.

"I don't know if slippers are the most important thing to be focusing on right now."

"I think I broke Ben," Klaus says.

"You might have broken me."

"Okay." Dave reaches out and cups Ben's face in his lovely hands. "Nobody broke anything. Well, somebody broke a mug, but that's fine. You just, um, had a new physical experience for the first time since you died. And it sounds like Klaus maybe lost his bodily autonomy for a second. Weirder things have happened to all three of us."

"See," Klaus says, "this is why we keep you around."

"Not the pretty good sex?"

"I keep you around for that, too," Ben says, his cheeks smushed in Dave's palms.

"Here's what I think," Dave says. "I think we pile up on the couch and watch a movie, and then when everything is a little less fresh, we talk about it."

"I think Ben should make me more coffee," Klaus says. "Since he's technically the one that dropped it."

Dave gives Ben a once-over, then gets up off the ottoman and kisses the top of his head. "I will make more coffee."

℘

“You can do it again, you know,” Klaus says. “If you want to.”

Ben looks over his shoulder at Klaus, who’s tucked up on the other side of Dave. Klaus around Dave around Ben, nested together because no matter how king size a mattress gets, fitting three grown-ass men on it requires some degree of cuddling. And spooning is nice.

“You talking to me?” Ben asks.

“Yeah. I don’t know. Either of you.”

Ben rolls over in Dave’s arms, because as good as spooning is, it’s even better to be able to make sustained eye contact with Klaus while he’s offering to let Ben pilot his body around like an ethically dodgy gundam.

“That seems ethically dodgy.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow at him. “What’re you gonna do in me, Benjamin?”

“Nothing. I’m not doing anything. It’s your real life body, Klaus.”

“Yeah,” Klaus says, and he’s working up to a legendary pout, Ben can feel it, “it’s  _ mine _ . I can do whatever I want with it, including loaning it out to people.”

Dave turns half onto his back, reaches over and puts his hand on Klaus’s hip. “Ben makes a fair point.”

“You just don’t like me talking about loaning myself out.”

“Not when you’re saying it in that voice, I don’t.”

Klaus rolls his eyes, but he props his chin up on Dave’s shoulder. “I can do whatever I want with my own real life body, including  _ entrusting it _ to  _ people I trust _ . How's that?”

“Tone still isn’t my favorite,” Dave says, "but you get a pass on your word choice.”

“Dork,” Klaus says. He kisses Dave’s shoulder, quick and sweet.

“Why, though?” Ben asks him. “It seems, I don’t know. Unnecessarily invasive.”

Klaus shrugs. “You said the kitchen tile feels different now, right? I thought it might be nice to touch some stuff. I don’t know. Maybe eat something. What do you miss?”

“That, um.” Ben settles down into the crook of Dave’s arm around him. “That’s a really big question.”

“Well,” Klaus says, “you can’t have the flesh suit full time, so scale your dreams accordingly.”

“I never said I actually wanted to do it.”

“Do you?”

Ben looks at Klaus for a while. “Yeah,” he says, eventually, because there’s no point in lying after a pause that long. “Yeah, I’d be down to try.”

“Dave? I bet you could do it, too.”

Dave rubs his hand over Klaus’s hip. “Let Ben try first,” he says, “see how that goes. But yeah, sure, sweetheart. If it’s safe.”

“Oh god,” Ben says, “the last time I had a body, I, um.”

"I didn't get a stomachache, before," Klaus says, "if that's what you're worried about."

"Yeah, admittedly, I'm a little worried."

"Okay," Klaus says. “So we start small.”

℘

They start small.

“Three,” Dave says, “two, one - now.”

Ben rocks forward on his toes, leans in like he’s going for the world’s most awkward hug, and-

A burst of color, sound, smell,  _ feeling _ , the most dazzling, nauseating combination of every imaginable stimulus cramming into the pores of Ben’s squishy stretchy skin, holy shit,  _ skin- _

And he’s out.

“That’s so weird to watch,” Dave says.

Klaus looks over his shoulder and down at Ben, who is … on the floor, now. Okay. “You good, Benny?”

Ben nods. “Yeah. Um. Existing is so much.”

“Mood.”

“What about you, Klaus?” Dave asks. “Does anything feel weird?”

Klaus looks at himself, like he’s checking to see if his body has anything to report to his brain. “Nah,” he says. “It’s sort of like - like I schlepped off to the back of my eyeballs for a second, and then came back with my arms in a different position. I got weirder feelings from that shitty weed we smoked in the ‘60s.”

“We smoked perfectly respectable weed.”

“Yeah, baby, that’s the problem.”

“No brain stuff, though?” Dave asks him. “You’re not, I don’t know, full of memories that aren’t yours? No homicidal urges?”

“I don’t have homicidal urges,” Ben says.

“Neither do I,” Klaus says. “No more than usual, I mean. Nothing’s changed, nothing’s jostled.”

"And you didn't feel," Ben says, and puts his hand on his own stomach.

"Nope. Did you?"

"No."

"Look at us. We're way better at this than dad ever was."

"Yeah," Ben says, "low bar."

Ben tries to stand up. Struggles, a little, but manages it in the end. There’s no reason he should ever feel unsteady on his feet. They’re not even real feet, just extrapolations of the understanding of the experience of having feet that he had at the time he died. Maybe it’s the contrast between that and the actual physical foothavingness of Klaus’s body that’s got Ben all ... wrongfooted.

“You sure you’re good?” Dave asks him.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Ben looks down at himself, back up at Klaus. “It’s just strange. I thought if I had - had meat again, they might, um.”

“Meat.”

“Shut up, Klaus.” Ben pushes on his own belly, feels the absolute absence of interest he gets in return. “I think if it was  _ me _ that was the portal, it would have - transferred, maybe. To Klaus’s body. But I guess it was just something freaky with mine.”

“Hey,” Dave says. “Nothing freaky about your body.”

“Monsters came out of it and tore people in half.”

“That’s not fair,” Klaus says. “Sometimes they broke walls down for us.”

“Yeah, so they could get to the other side and tear the people there in half.”

"What matters now," Dave says, "is that you didn't feel them when you possessed Klaus. Right?"

"Right."

"Great," Dave says, "that's a good sign."

"We should probably try some more times," Ben says. "Just in case."

Klaus grins at him. "Yeah? You missed having meat?"

"Klaus, oh my god."

“Okay,” Dave says, and Ben gets himself ready again. “Three, two, one - go.”

℘

Klaus gets a whole spread put together, all the stuff Ben liked when he was alive. Pancakes, bacon, even the gross chalky Pez tablets they used to sneak out of their merch packages and eat behind their dad's back. It's a lot. It's nice.

"Okay," Klaus says, standing next to Ben in front of the table, arms out from his sides in a weird braced stance, like he’s expecting Ben to topple him over as soon as he’s in, which has never happened. "Strap in."

"Are you sure?"

Klaus looks at him out of the corner of his eye. "I should be asking you that. I have completely different taste buds than you, this could be the worst letdown imaginable."

Ben waits.

"Yes," Klaus sighs, "yes, I'm sure, I love you, I trust you, now Jesus take the wheel."

Ben steps to the side, just an inch, so that they're almost overlapping, but not quite. He looks down at his left hand next to Klaus's right, his  _ hello _ hand. "I'm sorry if I give you indigestion," he says.

"You are my dear brother," Klaus says, "and I will suffer all the indignities my bowels can unleash for you."

"You're so gross," Ben says, and he steps into Klaus's body. And stays.

And that's-

Ben starts crying immediately.

"Whoa," Dave says, "hey, honey," and he jumps up from his seat on the other side of the table, runs around and pulls Ben into his arms, and that's-

_ That's- _

"Shit," Ben says, and jumps back out of Klaus again.

Klaus blinks a few times, looks down at Dave's arms around his waist, over at Ben standing next to him again. Touches his own face, pulls his fingertips away wet.

"Oh," he says, "Benny, come here."

He pulls Ben in between him and Dave, and Ben soaks it in through the soft, cool lens of his memory. He mashes his face into the nearest shoulder, which happens to belong to Klaus, and grabs on to the arms around him as tight as he can.

"Sweetheart," Dave says, and then they all go quiet, and Ben lets them hold him for longer than he can reliably keep track of.

Eventually, Ben says, "The ice cream is going to melt."

Klaus pulls back and pets Ben's hair away from his face, which is dumb, because Ben's hair is already away from his face. "There's more in the freezer."

"Sorry. You made all this food happen."

"I love cooking," Klaus says. "Well, no, I don't feel strongly about cooking either way, but I love cooking for you. I can do it again another day, whenever you want."

Ben shakes his head. "Can we - can I try one more time?"

"However many times you need. No skin off my back."

"Maybe if you're already sitting down?" Dave asks, so gentle, always gentle. Ben leans back against his chest, and he tightens his arms around Ben, just like that, like it's a reflex.

"Good idea," Klaus says, and he plops down in one of their mismatched dining chairs, pulls it up to the table with three noisy scoots. "Less to think about if you're not trying to stay upright on strange legs."

Ben looks back at Dave over his shoulder. "It might also help if you … don't touch me? When I'm in Klaus. Sorry."

"Yeah, of course." Dave leans down and kisses Ben, just lightly. "I should have asked first."

"No, it was nice. It was just. A lot."

"That's a compliment if I've ever heard one," Klaus says, and he winks when Ben looks down at him, because he's so annoying, literally the most obnoxious person in the world.

"I'm going to drink a gallon of milk while I'm in you," Ben says.

"Oh man," Dave says, his voice warm next to Ben's ear, "it's a whole new genre of empty threats for you to fling at each other."

"The only empty part of this threat is the milk bottle."

"You," Klaus says, "hate milk even more than I do."

"Yeah, and I hate you more than I hate milk."

"Just get in me and eat a pancake, you drama queen."

Ben slides out from Dave’s arms and into Klaus’s body again before he loses his nerve. It’s easier this time, now that he knows what to expect when he stays put. The wash of all the background sensations that Ben has forgotten how to tune out since the last time he was alive. His skin prickling in the air, his chest moving against the fabric of Klaus’s shirt as he breathes, the clashing smells of all the food laid out in front of him.

“You all right?” Dave asks him.

“Yeah,” Ben says, and he can feel the word vibrating in Klaus’s throat. He hears his own voice in his head and Klaus’s voice coming out of his mouth, double-exposure. “This is surreal.”

“I’ll say.” Dave walks back around and sits down across the table again. “Man, it’s - you’re really in there, huh?”

Ben looks at Dave, his lovely blue eyes. Takes a deep breath, nods at him.

“Well, shit.” Dave picks up a plate with two pancakes and a waffle piled on it, drenched in butter and syrup, a few blueberries scattered on top. He puts it down in front of Ben, and the smell comes barrelling out from all the others like a freight train, sweet and delicious.

Ben’s mouth waters, which is a much grosser sensation than he remembered it being.

Piloting Klaus takes some adjustment - his limbs are ganglier, his hands longer and thinner, all his joints simultaneously looser and more stiff than Ben’s had ever been. It takes Ben way too long to pick his fork up, but he’s got more of a hang of it by the time he’s actually cutting off a piece of pancake. He manages to get the bite from his plate to his mouth without missing, give or take a little syrup on the corner of his lips.

And then he’s chewing on food for the first time in a decade.

“Oh my god,” Ben says, except he’s using a strange mouth that’s also full of pancake, so it comes out sounding more like  _ amugah _ .

Dave laughs, leans forward with his elbows on the table. “Good?”

Ben swallows. “What the fuck.”

He cuts off another bite of pancake, then a bite of waffle, then sticks three blueberries on the tines of his fork and eats those too. He eats a strip of bacon, drinks half a mug of coffee in two gulps, scoops up spoonfuls of melting ice cream. He makes his way through all the weird old candy. He eats until his belly aches - the normal way, not the interdimensional way, he's pretty sure - and Dave watches and smiles at him, asks him how things are, passes him plates and forks and knives.

"I should stop," Ben says around a mouthful of fried rice.

"I mean," Dave says, "Klaus will probably let you do this again. He was really excited about it."

Ben swallows his rice. Finishes the last sip of coffee. It's dark, bitter, which Ben knows for a fact Klaus doesn't like. He must have picked it out especially for Ben. It’s not from a coffee shop, either - Klaus would have to have gotten beans for their grinder, a whole extra bag to sit in their cupboard next to Klaus’s gross blonde roast. More than enough beans left over for cups of coffee after this one. Like this is going to become a part of their life together - sometimes Klaus gets the coffee, sometimes Ben does. Like that’s normal.

He puts the mug back down before he panics and drops it on Klaus again.

Probably best to quit while he’s ahead, but - but before he hops back out into incorporeality, Ben leans back in his chair. Sticks his foot out, fans it around until he hits Dave’s calf under the table. Nudges it with his heel, just once, the soft material of Dave’s sweatpants, the sturdy muscle underneath.

“Thanks,” Ben says.

“‘Course, sweetheart.”

Ben gives Klaus his body back before he can really start blushing.

Klaus smacks his lips together. “I can’t believe,” he says, “you ended on your shitty coffee.”

“I’ll change it up next time,” Ben says, and Klaus grins at him, toasts him with the empty mug.

℘

Klaus and Dave disappear into the shower together, which isn't unusual, but Klaus comes staggering out, damp and bathrobed, completely by himself, which is.

"Oh," Klaus says, "oh, wow," and lies down on the living room floor next to the coffee table.

"You good?" Ben asks him.

"I am," Klaus says, "so peachy." And then Dave sort of … rolls out of him. Onto the floor next to him.

Ben stares at the two of them for a while, and then says, "Did you just possess Klaus and jerk off in the shower?"

"That may have occurred," Dave says, his face mashed into the rug.

Ben closes his book and sets it very carefully aside. "How, uh. How did it go?"

"I love skin."

"That's the creepiest possible way you could have phrased that."

"No, he's right," Klaus says. "Skin rules."

"You are both so weird."

"Skin," Klaus sighs. "I never knew I had so much."

Ben tilts his head. "Wait, I thought you couldn't, um. Feel stuff. When you handed things over."

"I usually try not to. But this time I tried to? So I could."

"Huh. That's cool, actually."

"So fuckin' cool."

"Our water bill is going to be insane this month, isn't it."

Dave flops onto his back and sighs. "Sorry in advance."

Klaus reaches over and smacks his hand on Dave's stomach. "See? Prostate orgasms. I told you."

"You told me."

"Stop telling me," Ben says, picking his book back up.

"Aren't you going to ask whose toothbrush handle we used?"

"If you're still using a toothbrush handle in your 30s, there's a more important conversation to be had."

"Love you too, Benjamin."

℘

Ben walks around and touches every surface in their apartment with his borrowed hands. The granite countertop, the flaky wood on the edges of the door frames. The ugly raised tiles in the walls of the shower. He lies down on their couch with his cheek pressed to the fabric and feels it, really soaks it in, the weird linen-ey texture that only living room seating sets ever have.

He spends a few minutes rolling around in their bed, tangled up in all of their different sheets, while Dave watches and gives him different pillows to put his head on.

At the end of it, right before he passes Klaus the reins back, Ben touches Dave. His curls, which are soft. His cheeks, which move under Ben’s fingers when he smiles. The palms of his hands, the calluses on his fingers, the dusting of hair that sneaks down past his wrists toward his knuckles.

This is, Ben is pretty sure, what Klaus remembers Dave feeling like. The records curated by the brain that Ben has nested into like a spooky matryoshka doll. The texture of Dave, which Klaus’s body has held on to, and which Ben is drawing out again.

He could only eat so much food, but he's bottomless for this.

He stops short of kissing Dave, of touching him anywhere his clothes would cover. That seems - it’s Klaus’s mouth, Klaus’s fingertips, even if he’s not the one behind the wheel. And it's okay. Dave's hair, his hands, the long line of his jaw. It's enough. It's everything.

Ben slips back out into his own body, such as it is, and the world is new.

℘

Klaus has declared that he jogs now, except that he hates jogging. Ben reminds him whenever he complains about it that there are, like, a whole VHS-centric industry's worth of other ways to get exercise. Ben's not even sure where Klaus got the idea for jogging into his head. No one Klaus crossed paths with any of the past iterations of his life would have suggested it to him.

Which, now that Ben thinks about it, might be the entire point.

"Ugh," Klaus says, flopped on the couch in his stupid running shorts, "can't one of you do this for me?"

"I mean," Ben says, "yes, actually, I could."

So Ben ends up in the park down the street from their building, sweating, lungs burning, doing about as good of a job running with Klaus's legs as Klaus does. Which is to say, there's some gangling, but he's not bad, overall. No worse than any of the other joggers in the park at 10:00am on a Tuesday.

He gets a couple laps in, nothing too strenuous. It feels good to inhabit a body, to use it the way it's intended. Ben had enjoyed that part of their training, growing up - the purely physical stuff, running and jumping and climbing. Understanding the real, material part of him, all his strengths and his limits.

None of what he knew about himself carries over to Klaus's body, exactly, but the theory is the same. It's a new set of strengths and limits for Ben to figure out. They're not  _ his, _ not really, but it's still satisfying.

Definitely more fun than the last time he'd tried to operate something that wasn't his own. Fewer casualties, too.

He burns out halfway through lap number four. If this were training, he'd push through the discomfort, drive himself forward, try to be better. But it's not. Dad is dead, and Ben is an adult, and if he wants to wander off the pavement and into the grass, no one is going to stop him.

Klaus wears his running shoes with little no-show socks because he cares about things like that, so the grass touches Ben’s ankles as he walks through it. It’s ticklish in a way that’s pleasant. There’s a lot of it, this big patch in between two paved trails, and no one else is using it, so Ben sort of … stops. Bends down like he’s going to touch it with his hands, and then keeps going, drops onto his knees and then his stomach, sprawls his limbs, rests his head in the dirt with his left cheek smooshed against the ground.

Ben was always a fan of dirt. Or maybe he’s just a fan of it now and he’s projecting that back onto his childhood to make him rolling around in it in his thirties less strange. Whatever, it’s nice and has a lot of interesting textures. Weirder things have happened to the world than a man in a park enjoying dirt.

The grass is extra grassy when it’s right next to Ben’s face. A fresh green smell, one that reminds Ben of once-a-week leisure afternoons spent in the garden at the Academy, reading while the others talked and played. He’d laid like this back then, too, the heat of the sun on one side of his face and the cool of the earth on the other, starfished out, existing just for the sake of existing. As much by himself in his body as he ever was, which was not at all, but his passengers had usually relaxed when he did, settled themselves along the lining of his stomach and waited their turn so patiently that Ben had sometimes managed to convince himself-

Not that it matters anymore. Ben the boy had been a door with a handle to twist and open. Ben the ghost is immaterial. Unmeaty. Much less interesting to whatever mind did all the thinking on the other side of the veil.

And now Ben is the one interloping in someone else's body, and he's alone. No gut company. No tug in his belly or his brain. Sun hot and earth cool, blades of grass tickling his nose. The tight forehead feeling of trying to focus his eyes on the ground right up close in front of him and failing.

His hands, which are technically Klaus's hands but are also, if only for the moment, his hands. Palms up, knuckles in the dirt. His shoulders, stiff with age in a way Ben's original set never had the chance to get. The sting in his chest from breathing cold air, his aching abs, a little rumble in his stomach, the benign kind reminding him that it’s almost time for lunch, his hips, his-

His-

Thighs! Wow, thighs. Legs. Really sore, those legs. Two legs, similar to the legs that Ben had when he was alive. Nothing about legs to spark any cognitive dissonance or otherwise complicated feelings.

And then Ben is out of Klaus and on the ground beside him.

Klaus blinks at Ben next to him for a few seconds, and then groans and rolls onto his side. “Oh my  _ god, _ ” he yells into the grass, “you gave me  _ shin splints _ and then you  _ left. _ ”

“You might need glasses,” Ben says.

“I might need fucking leg braces,” Klaus says. “Holy shit.”

“Relax, it’s good for you.”

“Also, hey, question. Why are we lying in the dirt?”

“I like dirt.”

Klaus makes mean eyes at Ben. Brushes his hair out of his face. “I don’t need glasses,” he says, “this is just what the world looks like.”

“I mean,” Ben says, “whatever. You know your body.”

Klaus grumbles and rolls onto his back. Lies there with Ben for a while, looking up at the clouds.

℘

Ben knows his body. He likes his body. It's a good body - it got him through a lot, back when it was a real, tangible thing. What’s left of it has gotten him through a lot, too, in its own way.

All the … accoutrements it has are fine with him. He actively enjoys them.

Dave enjoys them, too, which is fun.

It was never a thing with Ben, wanting what wasn’t there. He tweaked what he had, sure, but that was enough. There were other, more pressing things to worry about. Pressing, as in pressing against the fragile barriers of his insides, roiling in the pit of his belly like the abstract idea of snakes. Next to that, well.

Ben never really thought about having a dick.

Now that he’s had a dick, sort of, he still isn’t thinking about it. He’s not thinking about it a lot.

He’s definitely not thinking about it while Klaus laughs and eats cereal all over their couch like he was born in a barn and says, “I’m basically timesharing my junk.”

“Why,” Ben asks, carefully, “are you talking to me about your junk?”

“It’s an integral part of the other thing I’m doing,” Klaus says, “which is lovingly making fun of our boyfriend.”

“Oh, okay, that’s fine, then.”

“I’m taking that at face value.”

“You should,” Ben says. “I’ve never been sarcastic, not even once.”

“Good,” Klaus says. “I have not spent this much time masturbating since you were still alive.”

“Literally the grossest thing that has ever come out of your mouth, and I’ve seen you after a bender.”

“I mean, technically, it’s not me doing it. Does it still count as masturbation, or is it sex?”

“I don’t care.”

“Honestly,” Klaus says, “I can’t blame him. It’s the first thing I would do. I can’t believe you haven’t done it.”

“What the fuck, Klaus. I would ask, first. Jesus.”

“Dave asked first. I said he should go ham.”

“He doesn’t know what ‘go ham’ means.”

“Yeah, I had to explain it to him. He thinks that album is just okay, which is wild, because he listened to it after coming twice. He was  _ primed _ to like it.”

“His taste in music is the thing that’s just okay.”

Klaus plunks his cereal spoon down into his empty bowl and slams it on the table. “ _ Thank _ you! You gotta tell him that. He thinks I’m a bad example because I like ABBA.”

“ABBA is amazing.”

"I know," Klaus says. "Anyway, if you ever wanna take the hot rod for a spin, just say the word, I’ll hop back in the trunk and take a nap or something."

Ben opens his mouth and waits for a joke to come out, or at least something rude. Nothing happens.

"Shit," Klaus says, "you want to."

Ben shuts his mouth, looks away.

"Oh, honey, you  _ really _ want to."

There's a line brewing in Ben's brain about how the only thing he  _ wants _ is to forget this conversation ever happened, which is weak on the snark scale, maybe, but Ben's not firing on all cylinders at the moment, except then he looks back at Klaus to let it out and Klaus has gone all … earnest.

"Benny," he says. "Benjamin. Look at me."

"I am looking at you."

Klaus puts his dumb bony hands on Ben's cheeks and holds his head still. "You can borrow my dick."

"You're so weird. That's the weirdest thing you've ever said to me."

"You can," Klaus says, like a bloodhound on the trail of Ben's murdered dignity. "I'm being absolutely serious. I would never joke about this."

"You joke about your dick all the time. Dick jokes are like eighty percent of your material."

"I'm not talking about my dick. I'm talking about  _ your _ dick."

"I don't have a dick."

"Yes, you do. Your spiritual dick. Your heart dick."

"My heart dick."

"The dick in your heart. Like - you think I don't wish I could change up the plumbing sometimes? Bro." Klaus lets go of Ben's face, because apparently there's still some mercy buried down in the fetid depths of his soul. "Once every, like, four or five months, I don't know. When the planets are in alignment. Whatever. And I can't conveniently possess a loved one with the right anatomy, so sometimes I just, like,  _ have a vag _ . You know? Emotionally."

"I don't - is that how it works?"

Klaus shrugs. "Works for me."

“Okay, cool. Nice heart vag.”

“The point,” Klaus says, “is that if you ever feel like having something other than emotional junk, let me know, okay? This is not a metaphor. I will let you borrow my actual dick.”

What Ben should probably say to that is, no, Klaus, I will not be borrowing your actual dick. What he actually says is, “Wouldn’t that be weird?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Then why the hell are you offering?”

“Because we’re weird.” Klaus flops back on the heels of his palms. “You’re my ghost brother. You once talked me through every step of putting my clothes on in a bathroom stall and then helped me pick a movie to go get warm in and  _ then _ summarized the whole last half of it for me because I missed it while I was passed out in the aisle. It was better than watching it. You did voices and everything.”

“I don’t know if that translates to me borrowing your dick.”

"It doesn't  _ not _ translate to you borrowing my dick."

"Just - ugh. Let me think about it."

Klaus grins at him. "Well, yeah, I wasn't expecting you to borrow my dick  _ right now. _ "

"We need to stop saying 'borrow my dick.'"

"It's starting to lose all meaning, isn't it."

“It’s a nice thought,” Ben says, because he’s trying to be better about actually saying those kinds of things out loud to Klaus instead of thinking them really hard and then bullying him. “Even if I don’t take you up on it. Even if it’s completely insane.”

“I’m so generous and perceptive.”

“Don’t say that like you’re joking. You are.”

“I have to be catty at some point in this conversation. You’ve been a terrible influence on me.”

“Can I still hug you if we were just talking about your dick?”

“You can always hug me, you goob.”

Ben hugs him. His stupid gangly brother for whom he defies the natural laws of the universe.

Dave walks into the room a few minutes later, says the word 'turnips' to them like it's supposed to mean something, takes the Switch off the charging station, and disappears back into the bedroom.

“Dude,” Klaus says, “we’re fucking the same nerd, you can absolutely borrow my dick without it being weird.”

“Don’t,” Ben says into Klaus’s arm. “Don’t even start.”

℘

"It's Botticelli, for sure," Klaus says, bundled up with his back to Dave's chest, peering through his new glasses at the shitty black and white inkjet-printed flashcard Ben is holding up for him. "Right?"

"Yeah."

"Date … a long time ago."

"Early Renaissance period. When was that?"

Klaus groans and drops his head back onto Dave's shoulder. "No one told me I was going to have to memorize things. Couldn't do it for dad, can't do it now."

"Klaus, it's an undergrad art history lecture. This is the only way they know how to grade those."

"College was a terrible idea. Just, like, in general."

"What, you want to learn about this stuff by asking the Uffizi ghost of Raphael about 'that ceiling he did' again?"

"Okay, okay, fine."

"There was a preternatural incident. We are spectrally banned from Florence. An entire city."

"When was the Early Renaissance period, Ben?" Dave asks.

"1425 to 1495."

"Wait," Klaus says, "did you just know that off the top of your head?"

Ben shrugs, adds the  _ San Barnaba Altarpiece _ card to the Needs Work Pile. "I do your readings, sometimes. It's interesting."

"Oh my god," Klaus says, "you should take my exam for me."

"I'm not going to help you cheat at school."

"Is it academic dishonesty to use my natural talents to my advantage?"

"You'd be using Ben's natural talents," Dave says.

"Snitch."

"Anyway," Dave says, "it'd never work. They'd know something was up."

Ben looks up at Dave. "What do you mean?"

"When you're … piloting," Dave says, "it's completely different. The way you speak, the way you move. The way you hold your hands when you're not using them. You're a whole other person. And Klaus talks enough in class that it'd be obvious."

Klaus twists in Dave's arms to grin at him over his shoulder. "You been lurking, Katz?"

"No, but I've met you."

"Touché."

"Is it really that different?" Ben asks him.

Dave studies Ben for a second. He does that sometimes, to both Ben and Klaus, looks at them like he's doing difficult mental math. It's usually right before he says something that makes Ben's imaginary heart skip a nonbeat.

"Of course it's different," Dave says. "Klaus is Klaus, and you're you. No matter what you're wearing."

Klaus lets that sit between all of them for a respectful amount of time before he says, "Okay, no swooning, I need to study."

Dave kisses Klaus on the cheek and waves his hand at Ben, who holds up the next flashcard like someone who's functional and helpful and not experiencing any complicated emotions.

"Oh!" Klaus yells. "That one motherfucker. Perspective guy. Uccello."

When Ben looks at Klaus, Klaus is smiling back at him. Maybe because he's pleased with himself for not saying  _ a cello _ again, or maybe because Ben's face is doing something embarrassing. Maybe both. Probably both.

℘

Ben has gotten pretty good at giving Klaus a Look when he wants him to leave him and Dave alone for an hour. It's not as foolproof of a strategy as Klaus's, which consists of him climbing into Dave's lap and yelling that Ben has thirty seconds to clear the blast radius. But Ben has things like tact and subtlety, even though those don't matter much when Klaus responds to his Looks by waggling his eyebrows and finding the most ostentatious possible way to get up from wherever he's sitting.

Still, it gets the job done, and Ben ends up underneath Dave on the couch.

"Can I ask you something?" Ben says between kisses. "And if you tell me I just did, I'll - I'll still fuck you, but first I'll roll my eyes so hard."

"You're taking all my good jokes. I'll be left with nothing but puns."

"God forbid."

Dave kisses Ben one more time, then sits back, his hands on Ben's legs. "Ask away."

Ben takes a breath.

"Oh," Dave says, his eyes going wide, "wait, you're  _ asking me a question. _ "

“I mean, you’re on top of me, I wasn’t planning on asking about the weather.”

Ben takes another breath. He doesn’t actually need those, but he keeps doing it. At some point, he should accept that even though he feels silly every time, he’s never going to stop.

“Okay,” he says. “Wow.”

“I’m looking forward to this.”

"Do you - oh god, this is so stupid."

Dave smiles down at Ben, because he's never been phased by Ben being as seductive as a charred brick.

"Do you wanna suck my dick?"

Dave stares at Ben for a second. Slides his hands a little higher up Ben's thighs.

"Yes," he says, finally. "Holy shit, Ben."

"Is that - was that sexy?"

"Did you not mean it to be? Because it was."

"No, I, uh. I've never said it before."

"You should," Dave says, "say it more. If it feels good."

"Yeah," Ben says, "sure, okay," and spreads his legs.

℘

Klaus lets Ben possess him, take away all of his hard-won bodily autonomy, so that Ben can eat an expensive imported yogurt that Klaus bought because Ben looked at it too long during their last trip to the fancy grocery store. Klaus doesn't even like yogurt. Ben brushes his teeth afterwards, swishes some mouthwash around. The taste is going to linger at least a little bit no matter what he does, but maybe it's the thought that counts.

The yogurt was pretty good, so there's that.

Ben gives Klaus the reins back, settles on the couch next to him. Klaus smacks his lips and wrinkles his nose.

"Sorry," Ben says.

"I think all the minty mouth stuff made it worse," Klaus says. "My tongue tastes like an old man."

"I don't want to know how you know what an old man tastes like."

"Oh, Benjamin, the yarns I could spin you-"

"This was a bad idea," Ben says.

“What, the yogurt?”

“No, not - I mean, yes, the yogurt is part of it, but it’s not just the yogurt.”

"Ben," Klaus says, “you’re freaking out about yogurt."

"The yogurt is not the issue here."

"Explain, please, because all I know is that we’re both saying  _ yogurt _ a lot."

“I’m. Ugh." Ben swallows. "I'm sort of worried about how cavalier you are about all this, to be honest.”

“That's dumb. It's my body, right?”

“Yeah, but.” Ben pauses, and then he keeps pausing.

“You can just say whatever’s cooking in there,” Klaus says, “I won’t get pissed.”

“I know you won’t get pissed, but I don’t want you to get hurt, either.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, “I’m trying this new thing where I’m not an asshole to you unless you deserve it.”

“Okay, well, take your time, then.”

Ben takes his time. Eventually, he says, “I know that your body has maybe not always been a temple.”

“I thought yogurt was good for you?”

“We’re super not talking about yogurt anymore.”

“Ah. Are we talking about the controlled substances, or about me loaning myself out to people in the biblical sense?”

“That’s not how you use  _ in the biblical sense, _ but, um. Yes?”

“Well,” Klaus says, “you’ll be happy to hear that even if I wanted to pick up right now, I don’t know anyone who’s putting down, if you catch my drift. And the only indiscreet gentlemen I’ve had inside me recently are the ones who live here, and you motherfuckers don’t pay my rent directly  _ or _ indirectly.”

“Dead people don’t have to pay rent.”

“I don’t know if we ever came to an agreement on that.”

“It was two to one.”

“There is an unfair deceased voting bloc in this family.”

"It's just," Ben says, because he's going to barge on and say this even if it kills him again, "I know that most of times you were, um."

"In biblical situations?"

"That's not - whatever. Biblical situations, sure. You were in them because you wanted to be, and you took care of yourself, and that's fine. That's great."

"There's a  _ but _ on the horizon. I can feel it looming."

"You know what the  _ but _ is."

"Yeah," Klaus sighs, "I mean, I was there."

"Sometimes. Barely."

Klaus goes still. "Were  _ you _ there?"

"I mean, no, I wasn't - I wasn't going to be able to do anything to help, so."

Klaus looks at Ben for a while, and then says, "I have no clue how to respond to that."

"It just kind of … is what it is, I guess."

"Well." Klaus shuffles closer until his shoulder is resting against Ben's. "No plans for a repeat performance."

"I'm just worried," Ben says, slowly, "that if I have the reins, and I do something you don't like, it would be. Similar."

"I can't imagine you doing something I wouldn't like."

“I literally just ate yogurt that you thought was gross.”

Klaus smiles at him, a little twitch at the corner of his mouth. “We’re talking about yogurt again?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean,” Klaus says, “and I really don’t think you have it in you.”

"That's the thing, though. You don't always know whether or not you'll be okay with something until it's happening. And, like. If you changed your mind, or got uncomfortable, or. I don't," Ben says, and swallows. "I don't want you to get hurt. Like that. Ever."

"Hey," Klaus says. "You wouldn't. You couldn't."

"I could on accident."

“You literally couldn't. I’d just boot you out, I'm not an idiot.”

“What do you mean, boot me out?”

“I mean, boot you out. I can boot you out.” Klaus blinks. “You knew that, right?”

“What? No, I didn’t know that. How would I know that?”

“How would I know what you know?”

“How would I - this is so stupid. You can just boot me out whenever you want?”

“Yeah,” Klaus says, “c’mere, I’ll show you.”

Ben's hopped into Klaus's driver's seat enough times by now that he can do it without thinking about it, like muscle memory for his consciousness. He settles in, the familiar unfamiliarity, and then he feels a little nudge at the base of his mind. It feels the way a buzzing fly sounds.

And that's all the warning he gets before he's out again, the world whirling dizzy around him.

"Uh," Ben says, "wow."

"Wait, does that hurt?" Klaus asks, wide-eyed above him. Because Ben's on the ground. Of course he is.

"No, it's just, like," Ben says, and then he has to take a second and formulate a thought. "Uh, like looking over a ledge, except I'm the ledge."

"That doesn't make sense," Klaus says. "Oh my god, I fried you."

Ben sits up, blinks, lets his brain percolate a little bit. "I'm fine. It's just disorienting. Definitely not sexy, so that's good."

"C'mere," Klaus says, guiding Ben back up onto the couch. "God, sorry, I've never actually done it before."

"Why not?"

"Never had to."

"How did you know you could do it?"

"It's just there. Like a little switch to flip. I figured you could feel it, too."

"No." Ben pulls his feet up onto the couch. "I sort of wish I'd known about it before I started, like, bodysnatching you."

"I should've made sure you knew."

"Why didn't you? It seems relevant."

"Honestly," Klaus says, "it didn't even occur to me."

"That's - Klaus, can you maybe see where some of my concerns come from?"

Klaus hunches in, just a tiny bit, nothing Ben would have noticed if he wasn't constantly watching for it. "Not like I'm gonna need it. You and Dave are the most fucking respectful people in the world. It's kind of embarrassing sometimes."

"Oh. Sorry?"

"Not a sorry thing. More of a, like, I wish this wasn't something you felt like you had to do … thing. I get it, and I appreciate it, but I also hate it. Does that make sense?

"It does. We just - we care about you, Klaus."

"I know, I love that you do, and I'm allowed to be annoyed that you have to. The point is," Klaus says, waving one hand, "I'll boot you out. No mercy. Gonna fling you so hard across the room you'll get a ghost concussion."

"You promise?"

"Yeah, Benny, I promise. Can you promise to actually trust my promise?"

Ben sits with that for a moment. Looks at his brother's stern face, the laser focus of his eyes. "Yeah," Ben says, "I promise."

Klaus unfurls a little. "Perfect."

"I love you," Ben says. "Just, you know. You're a good person."

"Gay."

"Categorically not relevant here."

"I love you too," Klaus says. "It's nice of you to think about this stuff."

"You deserve to be thought about."

"Thanks."

Klaus bumps his shoulder into Ben’s like an overly friendly dog, then hops up off the couch and gangles himself away in the direction of the kitchen. “I’m gonna coat my tastebuds in sriracha,” he calls over his shoulder, “you can have a bite if you want.”

Ben gets up and trails after him.

℘

Dave, who is gorgeous, the most beautiful man in the history of time, arches his back and pushes into Ben’s fingers, three of them, which are inside him.

“Ben,” Dave sighs, and he squeezes Ben’s free hand in his own, because they’re holding hands, also.

Ben is kneeling between Dave’s thighs in the middle of the bed they share, holding his hand and fingering him. Eventually, if Ben acknowledges it to himself enough times, it might start to seem like a real, possible thing.

“You feel so good,” Ben says. And then he says, “So good on my - on my cock.”

Dave shudders, hooks his calves over Ben’s shoulders. Moves his hand in Ben’s so their palms are pressed together, fingers interlocked.

Ben didn’t actually plan beyond that one sentence, so he ducks down and nips at Dave’s hip, curls his fingers up and buries them in Dave to the knuckle. Flutters his fingertips until Dave sobs and tangles his other hand in Ben’s hair.

He trails the tip of his nose along Dave’s skin until he finds himself between Dave’s legs. He takes as much of Dave into his mouth as he can in one go, which is more than it used to be, if only because he’s more confident in being too dead to gag.

“Love you,” Dave says, breathless, mussing up Ben’s hair, rubbing his thumb over Ben’s knuckles. “Love the way your cock feels in me.”

Ben clamps his thighs together and wriggles into it like he’s a teenager on a hair trigger again. Fans his fingers out inside Dave, just enough for Dave to feel the pressure.

It's kind of silly. Of course it is. But Dave works himself back on Ben's fingers, into Ben's mouth, and Ben sort of … rolls his own hips, in time with Dave's, with the pace he curls his fingers inside him. He pulls off Dave and moves up to kiss him, and he presses his pelvis into his hand and - and fucks Dave like that, his hips pushing his fingers into Dave's body, fucks him and jacks him off until he comes underneath him, bearing down on Ben, snapping up into his grip.

"C'mere," Dave mumbles, after, and Ben smiles and keeps kissing him, wraps his arms around his shoulders. Dave gets his hands on Ben's hips and wrangles him around, which will never not be hot, until he's got a thigh between Ben's legs for him to rock down against.

"You're so sexy," Ben says into his mouth. "It's like, stupid."

Dave pulls back and cups Ben's face in the palms of his hands and says, "How is this my life?"

"Technically-"

"Fine," Dave says, "how is this my afterlife?"

Ben shrugs as casually as he can while also still rubbing one out on Dave's thigh, which is not very casually. "Guessing you were pretty, like. Virtuous, or whatever."

"Must've been."

Ben sighs and settles down against Dave's chest, tucks his face into Dave's neck. Slows the grind of his hips to something comfortable, something he can let simmer.

And then, because he can't ever leave well enough alone, he says, "Sorry I keep talking about my imaginary dick."

"Okay," Dave says, "you're not allowed to apologize for saying sexy things about your heart dick."

Ben snorts. "You've been talking to Klaus."

"He and I do chat, from time to time."

"It's - I don't really know how to explain it."

Dave reaches up and turns Ben to look at him with a palm soft on his cheek. "Does it feel good?"

"Yeah."

"Then that's what matters."

"You're pretty chill, for an 80-year-old."

"I try to stay current. Keeps me young."

"I never, um." Ben shuts his eyes, tightens his abs, grinds down. "I never really - never really thought about it before now. Before you."

"Welcome to my entire existence since 1968."

Ben laughs, and then moans, and Dave sets his hand low on Ben's back.

"I like being your sounding board," Dave says against Ben's lips. "I like figuring out how we fit together."

Ben tangles his fingers in Dave's hair, works harder against his thigh.

"There's so much about you that's new to me. I want to know everything we can do together. Every way I can make you feel good."

"God, Dave," and the way Ben's voice comes out around those words is … something else.

"Can I suck you off, sweetheart?" Dave asks him, and Ben shudders and nods, clings to Dave as he rolls them over so Ben is underneath him.

"I love you," Ben says, because all the words that would articulate exactly how he feels about Dave have left his brain, so generalizations will have to do.

"I love you too," Dave says.

And then he slides down until he has his lips on Ben, and he does something with the way he holds his tongue that lets him - lets him bob his head, a little bit, when he goes down on him. It’s such a small thing, barely anything at all, and it hits Ben all the way through to the back of his skull.

℘

"How would it even work?" Ben asks Klaus.

Klaus turns from his pot of whatever ungodly dinner concoction he's making for himself and looks at Ben, who is sitting on the counter and failing to not think about having a dick.

"How," Klaus says, starting to smile, "would what work?"

"Me, um, borrowing." Ben waves his hand at the air to the left of Klaus's legs. "Borrowing it."

"Ben," Klaus says. "I am so proud of you."

"Never mind."

"No, we're talking about this. How would you want it to work?"

"I feel like that should be up to you?"

"Well, one of us has to start somewhere."

"Okay," Ben says, "um. I don't actually know what you do with a dick."

"I have it on good authority that you've been doing all kinds of things with a dick."

"Oh my god. That's - that's somebody else's dick. That's different."

"Technically, your dick is also gonna be somebody else's dick."

"What I'm about to say may shock you," Ben says, "but that's not helpful for me to think about in this specific situation."

“It’s pretty intuitive,” Klaus says, turning the heat on the stove burner down to a simmer. “I mean, even Luther and Diego figured it out. At least, I think they did. It’d explain a lot if they didn’t, now that I think about it.”

"So, what, I possess you and jerk off? That's just me touching your dick. That's weird."

"Only if you make it weird."

"I am making it weird," Ben says. "This is me making it weird."

"You're the thing that's weird. I mean, Dave does it all the time."

"It's not weird when Dave does it, he's not your  _ brother. _ "

Klaus opens his mouth, but then he shuts it again, eyes going wide.

"Oh no," Ben says, "what just happened in your brain."

"Dave."

"What about him?"

"You possess me," Klaus says, "and then Dave touches your dick."

Ben stares at him. "Holy shit."

"Is that weird?"

"I don't know? I don't think so?"

"I mean, you're apparently the weird barometer in this house."

"Dave's the weird barometer."

"Now, or in general?"

"Yes."

"Baby," Klaus yells, "quit crossing animals for a second and come talk to us about fun sex stuff."

It takes a second, but Dave sticks his head into the kitchen. "This sex stuff had better be really fun, I was fishing."

"Ben, can I ask him?"

"God," Ben says, "do it before I combust."

"How would you feel, Dave, love of my life," Klaus says, "about Ben possessing me and railing you?"

" _ Rai-  _ of course you picked the weirdest possible phrasing. Jesus."

Dave stares, and then steps fully into the room. "How hypothetical is this? I ask," he adds, "so I know how long of a conversation about logistics we should have before I say absolutely yes."

"It's kind of hypothetical," says Ben.

"Kind of?"

Ben crosses his arms, forces himself not to run screaming out of the material plane forever. "It's not hypothetical at all."

"Right," Dave says, plopping down in his favorite of the dining chairs. "Okay. Walk me through it."

℘

“I'm missing something,” Ben says to Klaus, later. After they've all Talked, and after the Talk meandered back into regular talking, the easy flow of evening conversation. After Dave kissed Klaus on the head and Ben on the cheek and went off to bed, ostensibly to read, probably to give the two of them a chance to do exactly this.

Klaus has his head resting on Ben’s shoulder, and he doesn’t sit up, but he does poke Ben’s knee with the index finger of his  _ hello _ hand. “Missing what?”

“I mean, with Dave, it’s a sex thing. For both of you, together. You’re not getting anything out of it, when it’s me.”

“It’s almost like,” Klaus says, “I love you, and I enjoy making you happy.”

“Really?” Ben tilts his head until his cheek is smushed into Klaus’s hair. “That’s, like. Such a normal reason to do such a bizarre thing.”

“I can be normal.”

“I have never known you to strive for normalcy.”

“What can I say? You bring out the worst in me.”

“You know,” Ben tells him, “you could do a normal thing. Like, I don’t know. What nice things do siblings do for each other?”

“I think a lot of the family bonding mainstays need everyone to be alive and corporeal. And anyway,” Klaus says, “this is way cooler than making you a bunch of food or whatever.”

"If we’re talking cool things you’ve done for me, you're literally the reason I still exist. I think you're good for a few more birthdays."

"Yeah, hell of a gift. Welcome back to the mortal coil, you get to watch me do a bunch of dumb shit and try to keep me from killing us both for good."

"It wasn't like that."

Klaus lifts his head to look at Ben. "I know I’ve got some pretty significant memory gaps, but come on.”

"Okay," Ben says, "it sucked, sometimes, sure. But I'm not mad about it, if that's what you're worried about. Like, no, I wish you hadn't been where you were, but I'm glad I was there with you."

"Me too," Klaus says. "So stop having a crisis about why I want to do nice things for you and just let me do them, you dork."

"It just-"

"Stop," Klaus says again, pleasantly. "You're my brother, and my best friend, and if you keep trying to turn that into a zero-sum game I'm going to start taking it personal."

“It’s your  _ body _ .”

Klaus rolls his eyes like he’s twelve. “We're doing this again?”

"Yes," Ben says, because his mouth is a direct portal to the coiling horror of his brain and once it opens it's very hard for him to close.

"Why?"

"Because you - you deserve to take your body seriously."

"You don't see me letting random dead creeps in for joyrides, do you? I'm very picky with my men these days, you should be proud of me."

"Oh," Ben says, "okay, jokes."

"Sorry, I thought we were being fucking ridiculous."

"I'm not trying to pick a fight, Klaus."

"It's not a fight," Klaus says, "it's me saying the same thing over and over and you refusing to believe me."

"It's - it's not as simple as you make it sound."

"I'm telling you right now that it is."

"I just," Ben says, and then swallows, and then says, "I've had someone else in my body too. Sort of."

Klaus looks at him for a while.

"Maybe it's not the same," Ben says.

"It's absolutely not the same."

"Neither of us can say that for sure, though. I don't even know - can you really feel nothing when I'm in you? I convinced myself I didn't feel anything, but I was lying."

"Ben."

"It hurt me," Ben says. "I thought it shouldn't, but it did. Obviously."

"There's a big fucking difference," Klaus says, "between you having to kill people and me letting you use my dick for an afternoon."

"Is there?"

"I'm offering to do this. I want to do it."

"Do you? Or do you just think you have to because you can?"

"I'm - Jesus, Benny, you're not dad, can you quit playing 4D chess in your big brain and let me make one choice without busting yourself up over whether or not you're gonna  _ allow _ it?"

Ben doesn't have much to say to that, and Klaus doesn't appear to have a follow up, so they sit in it.

Eventually, Klaus says, "That was mean."

"I deserved it."

"A little, yeah."

"I think,” Ben says, “it's just hard for me to imagine choosing it. Genuinely. Without - without influence."

"He did a number on us, huh?"

"Yeah."

Klaus works his jaw. "Have you been feeling this bad about it the whole time?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably not. Not for, like, the food stuff."

"What changed since the food stuff?"

Ben stares. "It's  _ sex, _ Klaus."

"Okay," Klaus says, "so, what, I can be trusted to make food choices but not sex choices?"

"That's such a false equivalency."

“Putting food in my body is different than putting my dick in somebody else’s body?”

“Christ, maybe I  should have felt bad the whole time.”

“Ugh, no,” Klaus says, scrunching his brows, “you’re actually impossible.”

“It’s different, Klaus.”

“Yeah, you’re making it different, because you refuse to listen to me when I tell you it doesn’t  have to be.”

"I can't," Ben says, and stops. Starts again, "I can't make myself believe you. I really want to."

Klaus scowls at Ben, then opens his arms. "Get in here, dumbass, I'm gonna try something."

“What - possess you? Now?”

“Yeah, c’mere.”

Ben stares at Klaus’s chest. “Why?”

“I’m gonna cheat at arguing.”

“This doesn’t seem like-“

“Trust me,” Klaus says. “Okay? Please?”

Ben looks at his brother’s face, his lips pressed into a line, chin jutting out in a pout. He leans forward, watches Klaus’s expression relax in increments, then keeps leaning, slots himself between Klaus’s arms and then between his chest and his back, between his ribs. Settles himself there.

And then Ben feels a wave of irritation so strong he has to ball his hands into fists to keep from yelling.

He's mad. Extremely mad. Righteously mad, like kicking the wrong side of a locked door. Frustrated, because Klaus is being an asshole, or because he is, himself, being an asshole. Both of them are probably being assholes.

The mad fizzles back out a little. Ben unclenches his fists.

It's weird, feeling for himself and for Klaus. Because that's what this is, it has to be - the two of them rattling around in the same box, bumping into each other. They used to communicate in glances across the dinner table, in hand squeezes after missions, in silence and nearness whenever Klaus got too sick to do anything other than lie very still trying not to die, and this is like that, if that had been happening in the marrow of Ben's bones, down in the guts of his soul.

"Okay," Ben says out loud, "cheating at arguing, got it," and somebody's relief siphons a little bit of the tension out of his shoulders.

This seems like another one of those things Klaus probably should have mentioned he could do, but hey, mashing feelings together like play-doh might actually qualify as invasive even by Klaus's standards, so it makes sense that he played this one close to his chest. He can clearly keep it from happening if he doesn't want it to. If he's letting it happen now, there's a reason. Which would maybe have been helpful for him to mention before throwing them both in the preternatural emotional deep end, but Klaus is an ideas guy, not an execution guy.

Ben is starting to get a headache.

He's not pissed anymore. At least, no more than the normal low-level pissed he always is at Klaus for being Klaus-like. He's - okay, he's a little freaked out over the ethics of mind-melding, which is unsurprising, he's such a nerd. He's trying not to laugh at himself for freaking out about this when he's already agreed to have real physical sex in a body that doesn't belong to him, which is just as reasonable of a thing to freak out about, actually, except he shouldn't be freaking out at all, not about any of it, because-

It's  _ fine. _

Absolutely, crystallinely fine.

Ben feels how fine it is. He doesn't feel it, but he feels  _ Klaus _ feeling it, annoyed and fond, like a floater in his eye. Not dissimilar to the way Ben felt when Klaus used to have him stand lookout while he smuggled clothes out of department stores, but instead of a crop top in a size too small, Ben's got a coat pocket full of his own bullshit. Bunched up in knots and hard to get his head through. Maybe he should have grown out of it by now, but he still manages to fit into it, wear it around like a second skin.

Other people might not see it, but Klaus knows it's there, and he'll keep the secret.

Klaus lets Ben feel how fine it all is for as long as he can stand it, until the dissonance in the base of his skull starts to bleed out into his spine, the roots of his teeth. And then Klaus - muscles up, there's nothing else to call it. Flexes the walls of his brain and starts filling it back up with himself, all the Klausthoughts that occupy it when Ben isn't there to take up space.

Ben stays with him for a moment, feels his brain scattering its shell casings around. There’s affection, anxiety, a little bit of guilt. Worry that Ben’s going to be angry with him. Frustration that even after all this, after everything they’ve been through together, there are still thoughts in Ben’s head that Klaus can’t understand. Some muddled things. The itchy desire to stand up and walk around, or to submerge and lie completely still. The always-clawing belly need that Ben has only ever felt from the outside. Loud rattling grief.

And there, at the center of it all, old old love. A love with roots and leaves. The kind of love Ben has felt for exactly six people during his life and what came after.

Then a buzz and a boot.

"Okay?" Klaus asks him.

Ben lies on his back on the floor.

“Um,” Klaus says, "Dave and I figured that out.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We didn't even get to anything sexy the first time he possessed me, we just curled up and like, hugged a pillow and had feelings at each other until we cried."

"That's pretty romantic."

"Cool date idea, invite him into your id."

Ben runs a hand over his face.

"Do you." Klaus shuffles on the couch. "Do you believe me now?"

"Yes," Ben says, "you maniac."

"Good." Klaus pauses, says, "I thought you just didn't think I knew how to take care of myself."

"I used to think that."

"You were probably right. But I guess - I didn't know. When we were little. I'm sorry."

Ben opens his eyes, looks up at Klaus looking down at him. "It's okay."

"If you started, I don't know, locking yourself in mausoleums overnight for fun, it would probably spook me too."

"It's really okay, Klaus."

"It's - I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but it makes me happy. When you possess me." Klaus crosses his arms, looks down at his feet. "That's what I get out of it. Knowing I can give you that. Using my powers for something that isn't just, like, stupid and sad. Makes it seem like everything was worth it, you know?"

Ben rolls onto his side. Klaus's face is backlit by the streetlamp through the window. He looks healthy. The warm undertone of his skin, his shiny hair. Sometimes Ben barely recognizes him. 

"I can feel Dave," Ben says. "When I'm possessing you. It's like - like touching him through your brain."

"Shit," Klaus says, "I can't even do that."

"It feels so real."

"It is real, Benny."

"It's - I really love him."

"Good, because that man is gone on you."

"I question his taste sometimes."

"Nah," Klaus says, "we're a catch."

Ben sits up, finally. Scoots over to sit at Klaus's feet, rests his head on Klaus's knee. It's all sharp and bony when he mashes his cheek into it.

"We're weird," Ben says.

Klaus puts his hand in Ben’s hair. "I know."

"I don't really mind."

"Yeah," Klaus says. "I don't, either."


End file.
